全 文 ：The Role of a Modern Botanic Garden: the Evolution of Kew
David J. MABBERLEY*
(Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and University of Oxford, UK)
Abstract: The history of botanic gardens in the United Kingdom is sketched out with particular reference to the Roy鄄
al Botanic Gardens Kew and its changing role to meet societal requirements over 250 years. Kew忆s position as a mod鄄
ern scientific institution confronting today忆s environmental issues through its Breathing Planet Programme yet retai鄄
ning its heritage buildings and collections is pinpointed.
Key words: Botanic gardens; Breathing Planet Programme; Joseph Banks; Robert Brown; Joseph Hooker; William
Hooker; Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
CLC number: TU-098. 4摇 摇 摇 摇 Document Code: A摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 Article ID: 2095-0845(2011)01-031-08
摇 Of all scientific institutions, botanic gardens
have, perhaps, the longest history, some of them
existing as entities for hundreds of years. The oldest
in the English鄄speaking world is that at the Universi鄄
ty of Oxford, England, founded in 1620, and there
is a handful of even older ones in Continental Europe
(Fig. 1). Many such gardens, as in the case of Ox鄄
ford, sit on prime real estate-and, despite the obvi鄄
ous economic pressures, have remained on their
original sites. What does this longevity tell us about
their roles in society over 400 or so years鄄 and what
does it tell us about society itself?
Almost every nation and most principal cities
have botanic gardens; developing countries are es鄄
tablishing them, and those with surging economies
are putting literally billions of dollars into enormous
new botanic gardens. Why is this? What is it that
makes such institutions so important today?
Firstly we have to consider what botanic gar鄄
dens, including arboreta, are not-they are not just
parks or public gardens. The well鄄worn definition
from the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature (IUCN) is “a garden containing scientifical鄄
ly ordered and maintained collections of plants, usu鄄
ally documented and labelled, and open to the pub鄄
lic for the purposes of recreation, education and re鄄
search冶. The core of their raison鄄d忆俸tre is the fact
that they exhibit scientific collections of plants-they
are not merely there for display, though that is an
important aspect of the work of many botanic gar鄄
dens. They are there for education as well as recrea鄄
tion. It is this combination, I believe, that has kept
them going for so long.
Nonetheless, through time the balance between
these two functions has changed, has caused ten鄄
sions, and indeed strife -when in essence it is the
melding of these two functions that makes them, just
as with other collections鄄based organizations like art
museums and natural history museums, extremely
precious to society.
The early botanic gardens were entirely utilita鄄
rian in serving the very practical function of demon鄄
strating medicinal plants-that at Oxford was like this
and the name of the Chelsea Physick Garden, foun鄄
ded in London in 1673 and still on the same site re鄄
calls its origin and long association with the Wor鄄
shipful Society of Apothecaries. Later with the dis鄄
covery of plants overseas, botanic gardens came to
be rather self鄄conscious attempts at reproducing the
Garden of Eden. So it was that Princess Augusta,
植 物 分 类 与 资 源 学 报摇 2011, 33 (1): 31 ~ 38
Plant Diversity and Resources摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 DOI: 10. 3724 / SP. J. 1143. 2011. 10241
* Author for correspondance; E鄄mail: d. mabberley@ kew. org
Royal Botanic Gardens: www. kew. org
Received date: 2010-12-17, Accepted date: 2010-12-25
Fig. 1摇 The oldest botanic garden in the English鄄speaking world. ( Images 襂 Oxford Botanic Garden)
dowager Princess of Wales, daughter鄄in鄄law of King
George II of England, had the modest aim of having
examples of all the world忆s plants in her garden at
Kew, by then already rich in plant species as well as
an extraordinary assembly of buildings or follies typi鄄
cal of the period, including a mosque, a Chinese a鄄
viary and House of Confucius, gothic cathedral, ru鄄
ined arch, Alhambra, pagoda and sundry temples,
lying alongside the purely landscape garden of the
King himself (Fig. 2).
Last year saw the celebrations for the 250th an鄄
niversary of the founding of Kew as a botanical col鄄
lection of plants, not a particularly long track record
by comparison with certain other gardens I have
mentioned. Nonetheless, the evolution of Kew from
1759, which heralded the end of the garden as a
merely ornamental one, until today忆s modern scien鄄
tific organisation has, I believe, some lessons for
others. In 1759, then, Princess Augusta employed,
effectively as the first Curator, the Scottish gardener,
Fig. 2摇 Princess Augusta ( left) aimed to include examples of all the world忆s plants in her garden at Kew, with (right)
the Ginkgo from her original garden which still thrives today. (Images 襂 Royal Botanic Gardens Kew)
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William Aiton, the year when the British Museum
was founded, two material representations of the in鄄
quiring Enlightenment in England. By 1768, Kew
had over 3400 plant species being grown under glass
and in the open. Just 15 years before, Linnaeus had
estimated that there were perhaps just 6000 or so
plant species in the wild (rather than the 300 000 or
so suggested today), so Augusta seemed to be doing
well but by 1772, she was dead, of cancer, aged
52.
The person who probably had more to do in
turning the gardens, to be combined in his lifetime
as ‘ Kew Gardens 爷, into a garden of economic
plants was Sir Joseph Banks, who had King George
III忆s ear on all matters concerning exploration, sci鄄
ence and so on, being President of the Royal Society
for 40 years. Although he published very little, he
was a competent botanist, having been with Captain
Cook on his 1768 voyage to the Pacific, but his great
talent was picking the right people for the job, dele鄄
gating and networking internationally. He had a vi鄄
sion of a great network for the expanding British
sphere of influence, eventually to become the British
Empire, with the royal botanic garden at Kew as the
centre for the discovery of plants-in particular those
of economic use, his own experience in the Pacific
leading to his promotion of the introduction to the
Caribbean of the breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis
(Moraceae). But at this time, though by 1789 with
some 5600 species, Kew was still effectively in part
a vegetable garden for the royal households. Much of
the grounds were grazed by sheep and cattle, cereals
were sown and pheasants raised.
The economic importance of western botanic
gardens came to an apogee in the imperial expansion
of other European nations too. The gardens in the
home countries became not merely the repository of
the flood of new ornamental and medicinal but also
of many other economic plants. And not merely the
repositories - following the breadfruit example they
and their satellites became the sorting鄄houses and
trial grounds for what was to become the mass trans鄄
portation of economic plants to other countries in the
expanding empires. With increasingly sophisticated
glass and heating technologies, these imperial cen鄄
tres assumed a crucial role in the economies of the
colonizers and the colonized.
From the Jardin du Roi, later the Jardin des
Plantes in Paris, to the Hortus in Amsterdam, but
perhaps supremely to Kew, what have become the
major plantation crops of much of the tropical world
were introduced and propagated to be sent on to an
increasing network of dependent new gardens in the
colonies-to Mauritius, to Calcutta, to Singapore, to
Java, to Sydney, the Caribbean. And so cork trees
from the Mediterranean reached South Australia via
Kew as did the better 鄄 known quinine from South
America to India and rubber鄄trees from the Amazon
reached what is now Singapore and Malaysia via
Kew; coffee from Ethiopia was introduced to South
America via Amsterdam, vanilla from Mexico to
Madagascar via Paris.
Associated with this, began a huge world鄄wide
project of documentation in the form of dried flat鄄
tened specimens of the plants, herbarium speci鄄
mens, filed in museum fashion to record what was
being grown and what was being passed on. It is re鄄
markably convenient for us then that the natural sup鄄
port tissues and defence compounds of land鄄plants
allow them to be preserved in this way-lignin, cellu鄄
lose and tannins make for long鄄lasting specimens,
something that was noted 500 years ago in Italy,
though the pressing of certain plants and inserting in
books to keep out insects had been known long be鄄
fore in China for instance.
Beginning as documenting, and then accumula鄄
ting private herbaria put together by those interested
in cabinets of curiosities, these public herbarium
collections began to represent records of the flora of
the world just as in the grounds and greenhouses of
botanic gardens were beginning to display increas鄄
ingly plants for their own sakes. But beyond the pri鄄
vate collection of Aiton, Kew had no herbarium,
that of Sir Joseph Banks in central London being the
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repository for dried specimens, later to become the
core of the Botanical Department of the British Mu鄄
seum, now the Natural History Museum in London.
Banks wanted herbarium as well as living spercimens
from his collectors: the first being Francis Masson to
South Africa, later William Kerr to China (Guang鄄
zhou), Robert Brown & Peter Good, then Allan
Cunningham to Australia, though these living intro鄄
ductions were jealously guarded as being of national
economic importance (Fig. 3).
The death of Banks and of George III in 1820
led to less patronage for the Royal Gardens, though
through what has been seen as a somnolent time for
Kew, good science was being done in that Banks忆s
legatee, Robert Brown worked at Kew with Franz
Bauer, Banks忆 s botanical artist in residence from
1790 (and with a pension from him until 1840),
building on his own microscope work to disentangle
the phenomena surrounding fertilization in plants,
notably orchids-and this was to inspire Charles Dar鄄
win carrying this work forwards after Brown忆s death
in 1858. But in the 1820s, funds were reduced, the
overseas collectors recalled, the last being Allan
Cunningham in 1830. Soon there were public criti鄄
cisms of the management and eventually there was
an inquiry to which John Lindley, then Professor of
Botany in the University of London raised the poten鄄
tial significance to the ‘mother country爷, leading to
the transformation from a private royal garden to a
national botanic garden, the first the country had ev鄄
er had, with William Hooker, Professor in the Uni鄄
versity of Glasgow, as its Director from 1841-a post
for which he had been angling for almost 20 years-
and who was later to campaign and scheme to get a
post for his son Joseph, eventually to become his
successor as Director (Fig. 4).
Collecting re鄄started with Joseph Hooker being
sent to the Himalaya in 1848 and Richard Oldham to
China. Also in 1848 came both the Palm House and
the first museum, as well as a new masterplan for
the whole site. There were 180 000 visitors a year by
1850 to become 500 000 by 1865 (1. 2 million to鄄
day). There was still no public herbarium or library
but William Hooker made his own, perhaps the lar鄄
gest and most comprehensive in private hands, a鄄
vailable to visiting scientists. Then in 1852 a private
herbarium and library came to Kew and with its first
curator, opened in 1853 in the oldest part of what is
still the herbarium and in 1854 came George Ben鄄
tham忆s herbarium and library-and in 1865 the pur鄄
chase of William Hooker忆s library and herbarium.
But Kew had a wonderful garden too. The so鄄
phistication associated with growing plants for their
own sakes has been intrinsic in many societies, no鄄
tably China and Japan, but also in the great civiliza鄄
tions of central America and even the societies of the
Fig. 3摇 Two of the first plant collectors sent out from Kew by Joseph Banks to Australia (Alan Cunningham) and South Africa
(Francis Masson) . (Images from an illustration entitled Who忆s Who at Kew by Magnus Irvin)
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Fig. 4摇 A plan of Kew gardens under William Hooker忆s directorship (1840) . (Image 襂Royal Botanic Gardens Kew)
western Pacific. With increasing leisure in western
countries and the rise of both private and public or鄄
namental horticulture, working men忆s flower鄄clubs,
royal pleasure鄄gardens, and the importance of civic
town鄄planning-especially the provision of public parks,
as society became increasingly urbanized and discon鄄
nected from the countryside, botanic gardens moved
into this new area too, sometimes under duresse.
So in 1851, within ten years of Kew忆s being put
on a scientific footing the First Commissioner of
Works and Public Buildings, Kew忆s new master, in鄄
sisted that Kew not buy items at the Aiton family忆s
sale of precious things documenting the Gardens忆
early science and horticulture. This Commissioner忆s
successors considered Kew to be a place primarily
for public recreation, chastising Hooker for the lack
of enough ornamental flower beds, leading to what
Sir Joseph Paxton called a ‘gaudy flower show爷 and
the provision of plant material for other public
parks. Display seemed to be tipping out science and
the Kew Gardens Public Rights Defence Association
in 1877 forced morning opening against the Director忆s
wishes (Fig. 5).
Even before this the future of Kew as a scientif鄄
ic organisation had been in serious jeopardy in 1868
when, as today, reduction in public expenditure was
the policy of the government. In 1872 Richard Ow鄄
en, an opponent of Darwin in the evolution debate
and Director of what was to become the Natural His鄄
tory Museum, proposed the move of the scientific
collections to his departments. Only by pressure
from the nation忆 s scientists including Darwin, as
well as public opinion in the newspapers, did the
government relent.
Fig. 5摇 A cartoon from the tabloid comic ‘Funny Folks爷 (1878),
depicting the exclusion of the public during the mornings to allow
botanists to work undisturbed by ‘the masses爷 -a system
that caused public frustration and was soon changed
to allow all鄄day access
摇 The Hookers忆 retaliation came in the form of
playing to the imperial ambitions of Great Britain
531 期摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 David J. MABBERLEY: The Role of a Modern Botanic Garden: the Evolution of Kew摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇
with the writing of a whole series of colonial floras,
effectively in aggregate a ‘ botanical survey of the
Empire爷, beginning with the West Indies and Hong
Kong (by Bentham), following on from Hooker sen鄄
ior忆s Flora Boreali鄄Americana (1829-40) and jun鄄
ior忆 s work on New Zealand and Tasmania. Then
came Australia ( Bentham yet again ) and India,
right up to today, the regional Floras of parts of Afri鄄
ca written in conjunction with scientific organisations
in the countries themselves.
And as the colonies gained independence, they
often established their own gardens like those in
Britain and other colonial centres, so they were
founded with a display, public education and to a
lesser extent trial鄄ground functions right from the
start, though the balance between public access and
scientific work is still a big question-as it long con鄄
tinued to be at Kew.
The economic鄄scientific endeavour at Kew led
to an enormous influx of material leading to the first
expansion of the herbarium ( there have been four
more since), the writing of Bentham and Hooker忆s
monumental Genera Plantarum and the beginning of
Index Kewensis which was nearly named Index Dar鄄
winianus, after Darwin whose legacy funded it to be鄄
gin with. Then came the building of the first Jodrell
Lab for physiological botany. The imperial projects
under Asst Director Thiselton鄄Dyer, to become
Hooker忆s son鄄in鄄law and successor, led to the publi鄄
cation of the forerunner of the Kew Bulletin to chan鄄
nel information on economic plants to colonial ad鄄
ministrators. But work of a purely scientific nature
extended to other territories, for example Augustine
Henry, an official in the Chinese Customs service
sent plants to Kew from 1885.
The economic side of Kew has never disap鄄
peared, during World War II for example the her鄄
barium worked on practical matters such as the tax鄄
onomy of roses so as to ensure correct identification
of species with the highest levels of vitamin C when
citrus was unavailable through the Nazi blockade.
Investigation of rubber from Taraxacum spp. was
carried out in the Jodrell, which today covers all in鄄
vestigations of a lab basis from palynology and wood
anatomy to molecular phylogenetics besides the bio鄄
chemistry of economically significant plants, re鄄
search in conjunction with pharmaceutical and other
companies worldwide.
Today Kew has the largest mycological herbari鄄
um in the world housed in the Jodrell, two botanical
art galleries and occupies two sites, the older in the
organisation being the 132 hm2 is south鄄west Lon鄄
don, the newer managed on behalf of the National
Trust, Wakehurst Place of 200 hm2 in the Sussex
countryside south of London. The organisation cur鄄
rently employs getting on for 1000 people and has
hundreds of volunteers.
It has now become an organisation focused on
conservation and restoration, still with a worldwide
reach, whilst also being a World Heritage site since
1998- the balance between its conservation mission
and the burden of maintenance of heritage buildings
often a difficult one. The Millennium Seedbank set
up ten years ago at Wakehurst is a tangible example
of progress being made in providing tools for both
conservation and restoration worldwide. Notable are
Kew忆s efforts in the UK Overseas Territories, many
of which are islands with fragile ecosystems, but also
at home with examples like Cypripedium calceolus
(Orchidaceae) and working with over 100 countries
worldwide in a collaborative basis.
Kew忆s work is now embraced by its Breathing
Planet Programme where the fundamental work is
driving discovery and global access to information on
plants and fungi and the gardens are being trans鄄
formed into vehicles to inform and inspire, to ex鄄
plain the importance of plants in all aspects of our
lives. In a recent survey in another botanic garden
21% of visitors were seeking relaxation, 18% peace
and tranquility - such results are typical of surveys
conducted around the world. As St Thomas Aquinas
wrote, ‘You change people by delight; you change
people by pleasure爷, so relaxed visitors are more re鄄
ceptive to overt or subtle messages. There is a huge
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market for these issues: the challenge therefore is to
make the ‘ green wallpaper爷 created by the living
collections tell a story (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6摇 The seven鄄point strategic programme of activities introduced
in 2010 to align RBG Kew忆s activities with the needs of the planet.
( Image 襂 Royal Botanic Gardens Kew)
摇 Long鄄lived institutions like botanic gardens are
more readily able to deal with long鄄term projects
than say some research groups-and some plants, no鄄
tably trees, are long鄄lived organisms. Botanic gar鄄
dens and arboreta can take a long view. However, I
remember a particular head of a Botany Department
in England bragging that for him a plant was so
much green extract in a bottle. Such clever remarks
seem like Neronian fiddling when we consider the
plight of the world忆s plants and indeed ecosystems in
general. Botanic gardens, rather than science de鄄
partments in the narrow sense have therefore found
themselves increasingly concerned with not merely
educating people about conservation but now actively
practising it, in all kinds of ways.
But no one garden can or should pretend to be
able to do this alone-and Kew is no exception. From
the megalomania of Princess Augusta, the empire鄄
building of Sir Joseph Banks, and the cachet of Im鄄
perial Kew before 1914, has come an organisation
dedicated to using what we have in terms of expertise
and collections to help build capacity and bring prac鄄
tical outcomes to peoples in many parts of the world.
At the pure science end we have Mark Chase
heading up APG, the coming together of many of
Europe忆s major herbaria (Fig. 7) to build on that to
agree a successor to Bentham and Hooker忆s classifi鄄
cation for use in herbarium, library and garden.
Working with Missouri Botanical Garden and others
we have The Plant List as a tangible effort within the
aims of the Convention on Biological Diversity in this
Year of International Biodiversity and the announce鄄
ment of a Sampled Red List for Plants as a barometer
of conservation success in the future.
We have streamlined our research structures
and increased collaboration in line with the Breath鄄
ing Planet Programme and continue to work with or鄄
ganisations throughout the world but are focusing our
effort on those with limited capacity at the moment,
notably Angola and New Guinea. We are thrilled to
be part of international projects initiated by others
like the Flora of Pan鄄Himalayas and, with other
London museums, are working with overseas organi鄄
sations as part of the World Collections Programme.
The importance of public education about plants
in the West is increasing as school and university
curricula become apparently inexorably depleted of
plant content. University departments of botany be鄄
come amalgamated with others so that in some uni鄄
versities the plant ‘voice爷 has become lost altogeth鄄
er. With human fascination with technology and its
applications in biological science, there has inevita鄄
bly become a crowding in of studies at the molecular
end of the subject, part of this perhaps appeasing
the ‘physics envy爷 felt by the so鄄called soft ( ish)
sciences. Basic training in plant science seems old鄄
fashioned by comparison; and there is only a certain
amount of time for a student to absorb information
and techniques - though all this could be said of
learning to add up or subtract-plant scientists need
the basic building blocks. Kew is extremely con鄄
cerned that with increasing affluence and urbanisati鄄
on there is an increasing plant illiteracy, not just in
the West where we have set up The Great Plant
Hunt, now being rolled out overseas too (Fig. 8).
Kew has come a long way since Princess Augusta
or indeed 1913 when the Suffragettes looking to raise
their profile in campaigning for votes for women de鄄
scended on what was seen as an elitist organisation en鄄
tirely funded by government, smashed the greenhou鄄
731 期摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 David J. MABBERLEY: The Role of a Modern Botanic Garden: the Evolution of Kew摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇 摇
ses, destroyed orchids and even burned down the Re鄄
freshments Pavilion. Indeed we increasingly rely less
and less on government funding (now around 50%) so
that fund鄄raising becomes everyone忆 s business. No
doubt this will lead to compromises on the science ver鄄
sus recreation front, but we believe that the Breathing
Planet Programme allows us to deal with our local is鄄
sues in that regard without jeopardizing our interna鄄
tional obligations as a major botanic garden organiza鄄
tion in the twenty鄄first century (Fig. 9).
Fig. 7摇 Member organisations of the international Vascular Plant Class鄄
ification Committee, formed in 2009 in order to reach a widely accepted
consensus on collection arrangement. (Image 襂Royal Botanic Gardens Kew)
Fig. 8摇 The Great Plant Hunt is a Kew鄄led initiative to raise
awareness among school children of the importance of plants.
( Image 襂 Royal Botanic Gardens Kew)
Fig. 9摇 The old and the new鄄RBG Kew today is combination of historic heritage ( left, a view of the Lake and Pagoda by William
Marlow in 1763) and modern scientific facilities (right, the extension to the Herbarium Library, Art and Archives in 2010) .
(Images 襂 Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (left) and J. A. Wearn (right))
Acknowledgement: I am grateful to James Wearn (RBG Kew)
for sourcing and preparing the illustrations for this address.
References:
Desmond R, 2007. The history of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.
Ed. 2 [M]. Kew Publishing, Richmond, UK
Mabberley, David ( accessed 2010) The role of botanic gardens in
modern society [ OL]. http: / / www. uwtv. org / programs / dis鄄
playevent. aspx? rID=8116
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